On 30th Sept. 2024, to thoroughly implement the guiding principles of the National Conference on Education, further serve the “Eight Major Projects” and “Two Actions” of the Open University of China (OUC), and effectively promote the teaching and research ability of the teaching staff, the Lifelong Education Research Institute of the OUC held the 2024 Academic Exchange Activity of Teaching and Research Ability Improvement and High-Level Project Incubation Workshop.
The event was carried out in a combination of online and offline methods. The experts and project-participating teachers at the meeting engaged in the exchanges.
Prof. Liu Fengyue shared his experience in applying for the National Social Science Fund project, sorted out all parts of the application writing, and provided guidance and suggestions on the appropriate scope of topic selection, introduction, domestic and international literature overview, research methods, key and difficulty points, etc. Researcher Zhang Shaogang put forward four suggestions for the teachers participating in the project. First, select topics and determine the theme according to the principle of consistency among national strategy, university development, and personal interests. Second, establish effective connections between daily work-related research and national strategies, social hotspot and difficult problems with the thinking of starting from a small aspect but aiming at a large pattern. Third, adhere to academic accumulation by participating in academic conferences frequently, keep up with the academic frontier, and produce high-level results through long-term accumulation. Fourth, build research teams by introducing the Open University system, inter-school cooperation, and school-enterprise cooperation to produce high-level results. Researcher Yang Xiaotang, combined with specific cases, interactively exchanged with the project-participating teachers on the common problems in the application writing from the aspects of putting oneself in others’ shoes when writing the application, making inter-linked arguments around the topic, having a clear and self-consistent structure, and avoid minor flaws. Researcher Wang Xiaofei and Researcher Huo Lijuan gave feedback on the specific problems in project topic selection and application writing to the teachers at the meeting.
The teachers participating in the project all said that they had benefited a great deal from this academic exchange activity. By referring to the expert guidance, they found many problems and deficiencies in the applications they had written. Next, they will continuously revise and perfect the applications and polish the writing details, striving for growth and breakthroughs in the establishment of high-level projects.
Written by Li Ying, photo by Wang Guan, OUC